Will our 'better angels' defeat violence?

Turn on a cable news station and you're likely to hear the words murder, war, fighting and attacks. Violence is a staple of media coverage. At times, it seems like that's the only thing on television.

Such programming is giving viewers a grossly distorted view of the world, says famed Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, who presses the issue in his latest book, "The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined." We discussed the matter with Pinker, who was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine. We caught up with Pinker before he left Cambridge for a trip to La Jolla. He'll be giving a faculty lecture at the Salk Institute on Friday.

Q: How can we be living in the most peaceful era in our species history, when about 30,000 people will die in this country this year of gun-related violence?

A: There’s no contradiction in those two observations. To say that we’re in a more peaceful era doesn’t mean that it’s perfectly peaceful. I’m saying the rate of violence was higher in the past, especially in pre-historic societies or in many areas of the world that were, for long periods of time, controlled by warlords or mafias. About 14,000 to 15,000 people will be murdered this year in the United States. But the country has about 300 million people, and most of those who do die won’t do so violently.

Q: You write in “Better Angels” that, “I have to convince you that violence really has gone down over the course of history.” So you’re saying perception is very different than reality, right?

A: People get their impression of how violent life is from the media. Even if the rate of violence goes down to near zero, there will still be enough of it to fill evening newscasts or page one of your local paper. If your impression of what’s happening comes from this sort of news, you’ll have a very distorted view of how violent our society is. Every day, 25 to 30 people are murdered in this country. But far more people die of things like Alzheimer’s disease or cancer, and you don’t have news teams at their bedside watching them die.

Q: But isn’t it right for news stations to focus on violence? It’s horrific and represents what’s wrong with society ...

A: News accounts of any kind of a newsworthy death -- whether it is from violence or a shark attack -- should be put into the context of statistics, and the context of how things have changed over time. Rather than just showing the gory things that happened yesterday and saying that our society is going to the dogs, an editor should force a columnist to look at statistics to see if things are getting better or worse.

Q: The current coverage on the cable news networks is dominated by things like proposed gun control legislation and looking at what happened at places like Newtown.

A: That has distorted the debate, particularly the rampage shootings. The Sandy Hook shootings has commanded more media attention than it should. The reason that rampage shootings occur is that the person doing them knows he is going to be guaranteed a route to fame. By committing the most shocking, heinous act, they will get 24/7 coverage. But the actual risk of being killed in a rampage shooting is not high. Terrorism is another category where the amount of publicity is out of whack. The chances of getting killed by a terrorist are infinitesimal compared to other forms of violent death.

Q: The Newtown shooting was horrific. So what’s an appropriate level of news coverage?

A: Weeks and weeks of around-the-clock coverage on TV is disproportionate. There are many more people who are killed who don’t make it on the news, and their lives are just as valuable.

Q: You work at Harvard, which is a peaceful oasis. But you can take a 20-minute walk and be in parts of Cambridge that are violent. Isn’t this all about relativism?

A: That has nothing to do with my book. But if you look at those same neighborhoods in Cambridge years ago, you’d find that they were more violent, and if you went back to what life was like 300 years ago, it was even more so.

Q: What are some of the reasons that the overall level of violence has declined, over time?

A: It has to do with the presence of effective government, police forces and the judicial system, which penalizes aggression. The punishment reduces the chances of violence by a second group. It reduces your temptation, and the temptation for neighbors and enemies, to commit violence. You will think twice before killing your rival. You don’t have to maintain a belligerent stance to deter your neighbors if you know the government will act on your behalf. We’ve outsourced vengeance to the judicial system.

Q: I get that, but there are record numbers of people in American prisons ...

A: The American judicial system has gone overboard -- past the point of diminishing returns. A lot of people in prison are not there for violence, they’re there for drug offenses. Drug laws should be liberalized. There should be greater attention on keeping truly dangerous people off the streets rather than handing out indiscriminate, long-term sentences for a wide variety of offenses.

Q: You write in “Better Angels” that “humans are not innately good or innately evil." But you say we have the capacity for empathy. It sounds like you’re saying that, on balance, we’re good.

A: If people had a constant balance between good or evil, they’d be the same. But we have mechanisms in our brain that can make us violent, and mechanisms that can inhibit violence. We have become better and better at setting up institutions that tap into the nonviolent side. We have set up things like government and education and the media that bring out our better angels, a term coined by Abraham Lincoln.

Q: How has this specifically helped reduced violence?

A: There is a correlation across societies between education and nonviolence. That partly has to do with knowing enough history to know how futile violence is. So if a situation entices us toward war, we know that it is good to think twice. We’ve also come to know how institutions can help resolve disputes, to make life more peaceful.

Q: Are there other reasons that violence has gone down?

A: The rise of commerce and trade has helped. The world is more interconnected. It has become cheaper to buy rather than steal. That has made the world a more peaceful place. There’s also been a shift in economies from minerals in the ground and square miles of territories to economies based on expertise and business networks. This means that you don’t have to conquer territory to get rich. Look at places like Singapore and Hong Kong, which are plenty rich even though they don’t have a lot of territory filled with valuable stuff in the ground.

Another reason for the decline in violence is the rise of reason and knowledge. You realize that violence creates more harm than good. You start to treat violence as a problem to be solved rather than a war to be won.

Q: How has the media factored in?

A: They make the lives of other people more real, and therefore extend the empathy we have for others. We end up embracing people who are not exactly like us. We see how others suffer when relatives are killed. We see people’s hopes and dreams. That is easy to ignore if you don’t have an intimate acquaintance with the lives of others.

Q: You said in “Better Angels” that there is no guarantee that we will continue to become an increasingly peaceable society. What could happen to turn things the other way?

A: If there was a widespread societal collapse, or something like extreme climate change, where institutions stopped functioning, you could see things change. If there was a rise of some type of utopian ideology that says, “If we could get rid of people standing in our way,” that would be a problem. Or if there is a general weakening of the courts or the police.

I think that it is unlikely that this will happen. But it is possible.